Starting With Silver-Infused Underwear, You Can Save the Earth By Never Doing Laundry

There have been some weird ideas on what we can do to save the planet. In the past, we’ve talked about companies that are recycling used gum into shoes, and scientists replacing streetlights with plants that glow.

But saying that you can help the environment by abstaining from doing laundry might take the cake.

However, this Danish clothing company has an even weirder explanation: it’s because they have started making their clothing with silver.

Mads Fibiger, the CEO and co-founder of Organic Basics, says that this is because the garment and footwear industry contributes to roughly 8% of greenhouse gas emissions and billions of tons of landfill waste worldwide. 27-year-old Fibiger says that this is because a lot of our clothing requires tons of washing, which only means that it will wear out faster and inevitably be thrown out.

And which articles of clothing do we wash and wear the most? Underwear.

That’s why Fibiger and his three friends launched Organic Basics; they wanted to create sustainable fashion by infusing all of their clothing with silver so that consumers would never have to wash or wear out their clothing.

“The technology we use to kill bacteria is the same NASA uses for purifying water in the International Space Station,” Fibiger said in a recent interview with Forbes. “We treat all our products with a sustainable, low-concentration recycled silver chloride, which kills 99.9% of bacteria.”

According to Fibiger, wearing clothing for a long period of time inevitably garners bacteria, and as the bacteria collects, the bacteria starts to smell. Silver, on the other hand, prevents bacteria from forming in the first place, which means your clothing will never start to stink. Not only that, natural materials – such as silver and gold – will stay in an article of clothing for its entire lifespan.

Organic Basics just launched their line of silver-infused clothing last month. In addition to using the silver treatment, all of their cotton is sustainably sourced and their nylon is mechanically recycled. They even use LED lights in all of their factories.

While their prices aren’t on par with anything at Walmart, the company believes that buying durable clothing that is designed to last will pay off in the future – for the consumer and for the planet.

“We think that buying poor quality, fast fashion is a lot like peeing your pants when you’re cold,” says the company’s website. “It feels nice at first, but it’s not so good later on. Nothing is less sustainable and more frustrating than something that falls apart after a wear and a wash, right? Buying better-made [clothing] means investing in quality that lasts.”